Community Helps

Before reading the other posts in Team Short Showers, I was feeling pretty pessimistic about the challenge. Yeah I was doing better in taking more environmentally friendly showers, but I was far from perfect. I tried adding incentives to taking shorter and cooler showers, and it worked a little bit, but still, I figured that after all of this time focusing on taking more environmentally friendly showers and even writing multiple blog posts on it, that I would be close to perfect. But in reading other posts from Team Short Showers, I realized that I was not alone. By having a community of people trying to accomplish the same things as me, I realized that the problems that I was having were not unique to me, and that others were struggling with a lot of the same things.

Just knowing that I wasn’t alone in this challenge was enough for me. And I think that the other group members also have probably been helped in reading posts from Team Short Showers. I received multiple comments about others  liking my idea to give myself incentives for short showers, like treating myself to a Milky Way. While maybe they didn’t like the idea of eating a chocolate bar early in the morning, they can find other incentives that suit them personally. Another idea that has helped me is the snooze button that I read about in other posts. By sleeping in more and giving me less time for a shower before class, I physically cannot take a long shower if I want to go to class on time. At first I was skeptical of this idea working, but hearing about others in Team short showers successfully pulling this off gave me the confidence to try it myself. And I’m happy to say it’s worked. By sleeping in more and not giving myself time to shower for a long time, I’ve successfully been able to shorten my showers considerably. And I’ve got my group and the snooze button to thank.